During the Siege of Leningrad (1941–1944) in World War II... | funfact.wiki | funfact.wiki
During the Siege of Leningrad (1941–1944) in World War II, at least nine Soviet botanists starved guarding a seed bank of 250,000 food crop samples. They refused to eat a single one—rice researcher Ivanov died amid thousands of bags of rice.
The word 'ketchup' comes from '膎汁' (kôe-chiap) in the Chinese Min Nan dialect, meaning 'fish sauce.' It was originally a fermented fish and shellfish sauce—tomato ketchup was not invented until 1812.
The term 'spam mail' comes from Monty Python's comedy sketch 'Spam.' During World War II, the US supplied massive amounts of SPAM cans to Britain, and the Brits' frustration inspired the sketch. The name later stuck to annoying promotional emails.
Yamaguchi Tsutomu survived both Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the first blast, he returned to Nagasaki and went to work. His boss scolded him — "a single bomb can't destroy a city" — and at that exact moment, the second atomic bomb detonated.
In 1983, during the Cold War, a Soviet Union early warning system detected 5 US missile launches. Officer Stanislav Petrov judged it a false alarm — reasoning the US would launch everything if starting a nuclear war. He was right: the satellite had mistaken sunlight for launch flashes.